Who is Vonage?
Vonage is redefining business communications, helping enterprises use fully-integrated unified communications, contact center and communications API solutions to improve how business gets done. True to its roots as a technology disruptor, Vonage has embraced technology to transform how companies connect, collaborate and communicate to create better business outcomes. Vonage’s fully-integrated cloud communications platform built on a microservices-based architecture enables businesses to collaborate more productively and engage their customers more effectively using intelligent interactions across all channels, including messaging, chat, social media, video and voice.
What are the top three challenges Vonage customers are facing as it relates to their WAN and application access?
In an increasingly digital world, businesses today expect high quality communications (voice, video, chat, SMS) that is available when they need it and that sounds and looks great whenever they use it. Traditionally, this was solved by deploying private (typically MPLS based), dedicated bandwidth. But the need for much larger bandwidth to the premises has made this a costly solution.
Today’s businesses also require that they remain connected to the cloud at all times since all or most of their business applications are now in the cloud. However, individual network connections can be a challenge but when customers have the use of multiple connections, they need a technology and service that seamlessly leverages these connections.
Finally, customers need to reduce the impact to their businesses and revenue when there is a network disruption (and they will happen). In this hyper-competitive world, every lost or bad customer contact is a loss of both present and future revenue.
Tell us about your SD-WAN journey and why Vonage partnered with VMWare?
Vonage was the first unified communications provider to integrate an SD-WAN solution into its cloud offering. Launched in early 2016, Vonage SmartWAN optimizes reliability and Quality of Service (QoS) for businesses operating in the Cloud, over a private or public network. Integrated with Vonage’s core service, SmartWAN allows MPLS-like QoS, uptime and SLAs over public broadband, including LTE.
In early 2018, Vonage also announced that it had expanded the award-winning SmartWAN across all unified communications products, including its flagship Vonage Business Cloud service.
SmartWAN is designed to respond to today’s businesses and their high demand for voice, video and data communications – simplifying and improving redundancy, especially for companies with multiple locations. Vonage SmartWAN helps businesses that operate over the Company’s private MPLS network or over the top of an existing broadband connection to enhance the performance of mission critical applications such as Virtual Desktop, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), CRM tools and vertical specific services like Point of Sale traffic.
Additional benefits include brownout/blackout protection, as well as the ability to maximize bandwidth resources across multiple locations. The same technology also benefits customers with a single broadband connection.
Vonage, in partnership with VMWare, pioneered the application of SD-WAN as an important element of optimizing user experience and business value when adopting a unified communications solution.
Vonage chose VMWare SD-WAN by VeloCloud’s technology for its unique combination of Dynamic Multipath Optimization and on-demand remediation capabilities across multiple network connections or over a single connection. VMWare SD-WAN technology enables bandwidth on-demand, provides direct and optimal access to cloud-based applications, and simplifies deployment of services.
VMWare SD-WAN provides this technology through a combination of a device on customer premises and gateways in Vonage’s own core network. The flexibility of customization within Vonage’s network was key to choosing a partner to provide this technology.
Meet the Executive
Sanjay Srinivasan, PhD
Vice President and Chief Architect, Vonage
As Chief Architect for Vonage, Sanjay oversees Sales and Solutions Engineering for the company’s unified communications offering. He leads a team of solutions engineers that develop cloud-based unified communications solutions for medium to enterprise-sized businesses. He providers feedback to the product development process on what strategic product and services need to be developed.
Sanjay joined Vonage upon the Company’s acquisition of Telesphere in 2015, where he served as Chief Technology Officer. Sanjay has worked in the data networking, VOIP, SaaS arena for more than 25 years. He holds a doctorate degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Virginia and is a member of Engineering Honor societies Eta Kappa Nu and Tau Beta Pi. He is a mentor in the STEM field with focus on Robotics guiding middle and high school teams in the exciting world of robot competitions. He’s driven by the need to deliver leading edge solutions to customers with particular focus on evangelizing the use of technology to explore new ways of B2B and B2C interactions.
